We moved to Devon about two years ago from another predominantly white area but before that we lived in London. Going from being immersed in culture to being surrounded by albeit the beautiful countryside, was scary.
I remember the first time I came to look around and I cried, no city which to me meant no people like me, only my family.
Today [at the North Devon Black Lives Matter protest] was the first time I feel like I connected with POC in Devon because we are so spread out, it’s important we support each other in hard times like this- because though we face adversity we are black and we are proud.
In terms of the community, we need to change the underlying bubbling racism which will in time manifest itself into something bigger- eg: systemic institutional racism at the top (government, police etc). We hope that by being present as a minority in North Devon, we can open people’s eyes to see that we’re just like them- just with a ton of different stories from the past to tell!
This story is from a series of interviews by Kadeem Yarde, who spoke to people at a Black Lives Matter protest in North Devon. To see the original blog post use this URL: https://www.kadeemyarde.com/post/racism-in-north-devon